White Dawn: A Military Romantic Suspense Novel (27 page)

“Remember, we’re here for the
prisoners!” he reminded them. The prisoners were his assignment. He
was to get to them before the Insurrectos did and as stealthily as
possible.

He put his eye to the bullet hole in the
door. It was dim on the other side, but not completely dark. He
could see a passageway lined with doors. There was a much lighter,
brighter area at the far end and he could see the blue front doors
with their steel mesh reinforced glass. That was where the light
was coming from. Even though the day was dark from the heavy cloud
cover, it was still brighter than the passage without the overhead
fluorescent tubes working.

There were Insurrectos all along the
passage. Six of them. All of them had their weapons drawn and
pointing at the door. They were watching the door with tense
expressions, waiting for the enemy to emerge.

Duardo sighed. There wasn’t any way out
but through the door. It was their bad luck that so many
Insurrectos had just happened to be standing in the passageway and
heard them force their way into the room.

But why
had
they been standing in
the passageway?

He studied the passage again, looking at
the seven doorways that lined the corridor walls. Three of the
Insurrectos were clustered around one of the doors on the left.

Then the Insurrecto in the middle of the
three threw up his hands, dropped his rifle and with a cry, fell
backward through the door behind him, disappearing from Duardo’s
view.

The others turned to look, startled.

Then a second guard was hauled backward
through the door.

Duardo didn’t wait for more. He opened
the door, feeling the tumblers unlock as he did so, then pushed the
door wide. “Go! Go!” he hissed.

Gunfire sounded just down the passage,
as they ran out into it. The Insurrectos were gathered around the
open door, all trying to fit through the doorway at once. It was a
rout. He picked off three of them himself, going for the knees to
disable them. From experience he knew that injured Insurrectos were
as neutralized as dead ones, especially if the injury was a painful
one. They tended to fold mentally when shot, unable to come back
fighting the way the soldiers working in Duardo’s unit would.

Jasso and Rickardo, in the front of the
phalanx heading down the corridor, took out the last remaining
guard. When they reached the Insurrectos, they picked up the
weapons, taking them out of reach, then patted the Insurrectos
down, looking for more.

Duardo stepped around them, tapped Jasso
on the arm and pointed toward the reception area. Then he waved
Adjuno and Emile to follow Jasso. The three of them would be enough
to clear the front room.

Then Duardo moved into the room.

Valentin and Trajo stood with relaxed
stances just inside the room, confronting the four people already
in there.

Carmen Escobedo stood next to the same
tall, blond-haired man who had been next to her when Ibarra had put
them on display, late last night. Both of them had their hands
around the throats of the two Insurrectos they had hauled inside.
The man had a rifle resting against his Insurrecto’s temple. The
soldier was standing, his face red with anger. Or shame.

The one Carmen Escobedo was holding was
half-crumpled on the floor. Blood flowed from a wound over his ear.
She held a Browning Hi Power pistol against his head with her
injured arm and Duardo was glad the Insurrecto couldn’t see she was
barely holding the gun in place.

Duardo tapped his men on the shoulder
and they shifted aside, letting him through. “My name is Colonel
Peña,” he told them, using English. There was a chance the
Insurrectos knew some English, but he spoke fast. He looked at the
woman. Her face was gray with pain and fatigue. “You are Carmen
Escobedo.” He looked at the man. “You are Garrett Blackburn, the
leader of the Resistance unit that Carmen has been with for the
last seven weeks.”

The man’s clear gray eyes narrowed. “You
know who I am. Interesting.”

“Do we know each other?” Carmen
asked.

“No,” Duardo told her. “I didn’t make it
back to the big house before you left. But we are cousins by
marriage.”

Her full lips parted in surprise.
“You’re….Duardo? Minnie’s guy?”

“Indeed, I am.” He gave her a small
smile.

There was a soft, flat coughing sound
from the passageway. That was Jesso’s silenced pistol.

“We’re taking back the mine,” Duardo
added. “If General Flores is on schedule, they should be busting
through the fence line about now, to mop up the rest of Ibarra’s
men.”

“You were sent to secure our safety,
first,” Garrett said. “If you don’t have a fix on your general,
then you must have come through the back way…except there
is
no back way. There’s only the front doors.”

“We made a back way.” Duardo shrugged.
“You can put those two back on the floor and come with us.”

“To where?” Carmen asked and let go of
her captive. He sagged to the ground with a painful wheeze.
Quickly, she transferred the Browning to her other hand.

“The smelter,” Duardo told them. “It’s
the only building likely to stay standing through the hurricane.
Come along.”

“I need to talk to you about that,”
Carmen said urgently.

“The building or the hurricane?”

“Neither. Both. Do you remember the
hurricane of 2009? The one that took out the north end of the main
island?”

Duardo nodded. “I’m from Pascuallita,”
he said shortly, then realized why she was recalling that
particular storm. “Tidal waves…” he finished.

She nodded.

He looked around the room, remembering
the flat, low land that made up most of The Big Rock and suddenly
felt horribly exposed and vulnerable.

“Is the smelter the big building with
the concrete walls?” Garrett asked.

“Yes.”

“It will survive a wall of water,”
Carmen said. “We’re more to the north of the island, here. By the
time the wave gets here, it will have lost a lot of power.”

“Then the plan doesn’t change,” Duardo
said.

“You might have to step it up a bit,”
Garrett told him. “Carmen figures the wave will hit when the eye
does.”

That made things urgent. Duardo turned
and headed for the door and heard a soft grunt. When he looked over
his shoulder, the man who Carmen’s fighter friend had been holding
was lying on the ground. Valentin and Trajo were standing aside,
waiting for the pair to follow Duardo as commanded.

He walked up the passage to the front
doors. Adjuno and Emile had contained the reception area. Five
Insurrectos were lying on the floor, their hands over the back of
their heads. Each team member had a supply of hand binders and the
Insurrectos had one each ratchetted tightly around their wrists,
holding them in that position. Unless they were very fit, it would
be impossible for them to get up quickly when tethered that
way.

Duardo stayed out of the sightlines
through the glass panels in the front door, moving to the side of
one of them to look through.

The compound was a chaotic swirl of
Insurrectos and Loyalists. General Flores had arrived on schedule.
The fence on the other side of the compound was split apart and
shoved aside to make a twenty foot gap.

All the Loyalists wore plastic safety
goggles that protected their eyes and let them see. They were roped
together in pairs and threes and fours, everyone bent forward to
fight the power of the wind. They were staggering, but because of
the weight and anchor of the man next to them, they were able to
stay on their feet.

Duardo watched as two Loyalists stepped
sideways, the rope between them stretching tight. They took an
Insurrecto right off his feet with the taut rope. There were others
using their rope as lassos, or as tripping devices, looping them
around an Insurrecto’s ankles and pulling him off his feet.

There wasn’t much shooting happening.
The wind would be destroying everyone’s accuracy.

“Line up!” Duardo called.

Adjuno, the heavy weight, stepped up
behind Duardo and clapped his shoulder with his left hand. The
others assembled behind him. Duardo looked at Garrett and Carmen.
“You, too,” he said flatly. “Somewhere in the middle.” He wanted
Jasso on the end.

“What about the Insurrectos still in
this building?” the man demanded sharply.

“They can take their chances with the
storm,” Duardo said. “We’re making for the only safe building on
the island. Leave them be.” He pulled out his Glock again.
“Ready?”

Everyone was lined up behind everyone
else, their non-dominant hand on the shoulder of the person in
front, their hand weapons in the other. All except Carmen Escobedo,
who simply could not raise her arm. Garrett had put her in front of
him, then pushed forward to put
his
hand on Rickardo, who
stood in front of Carmen. But Carmen held the Browning in her right
hand and she looked like she knew how to use it.

Duardo pulled the door open and
staggered as the wind pushed at him with horrifying force. No
wonder everyone was staggering out there. The wind had picked up
since they had stolen into the admin building. Adjuno’s hand on his
shoulder kept him on his feet.

He pushed forward, moving out the door
at an angle that would take them by the shortest route possible to
the big gray concrete smelter complex. It was two hundred yards
away, but that two hundred yards was going to be a challenge, every
single step of it.

Duardo could barely see, for the wind
was stinging his eyes, making them water and his vision to blur.
But it wasn’t his job to see. Adjuno was using his back as shelter,
peering over his shoulder as he needed to. His hand on Duardo’s
shoulder steered him. Duardo’s job was to cut through the wind and
keep the line moving.

Everyone else was lined up behind him,
but each man was staggered half a step sideways, providing guidance
to the one in front.

A few of the Insurrectos took shots at
them, but none of the shots came close. Duardo didn’t bother
reacting to them. The only way anyone was going to hit them would
be because they were pointing their gun in any direction except at
them. The wind was too strong. It made him reach down and pull the
knife out of his boot. If the wind was scattering rifle fire, then
his pistol bullets would be even less effective.

Ahead, there was a narrow path between
two of the admin buildings that sat in a semi-circle around the
compound. The path led directly to the smelter that rose up forty
feet high behind the admin buildings. Duardo could barely see the
alley, but he had studied the layout last night through the night
glasses and knew the general direction to head.

Step by slow step, they made their way
to the alley. A few Insurrectos tried to physically attack them and
halt them, so they would stop while the two closest in the line
dealt with them. Twice, Duardo was forced to use his knife to fend
off an assault, with Adjuno stepping around to help.

The narrow alley between the
prefabricated huts seemed to channel and concentrate the wind. The
pressure came from behind, sending them staggering forward as the
wind pushed through the narrow aperture, whistling with a keening
note that seemed to lodge in the brain. It was impossible to hear
anything but the wind.

When they emerged into the open area
behind the buildings, Duardo raised his closed fist and everyone
came to a halt. Jasso and Emile quartered the area constantly with
their rifles, monitoring. Adjuno tapped Duardo’s shoulder and
pointed. Duardo looked.

The only road on the island wound past
the compound, just on the other side of the fence, following the
rail line. A spur from the rail line ran right up to the back of
the smelter building. The road and rail line turned away from the
compound and ran almost directly north to the bridge that gave
access to the main island.

A long line of Insurrectos were
staggering along the road. They were escaping.

Duardo looked at Trajo, bumped his fist
against the palm of his hand and let his fingers spread in the air.
Trajo nodded, reached into his backpack and pulled out a flare. He
lit it and pointed it toward the sky.

The green flare shot up into the bruised
gray sky and burst. The bright green sparkling light was almost
immediately dispersed by the wind, but it had been spotted, for
almost immediately, there was a low rumbling sound that Duardo
could feel through his feet.

The concrete spans of the bridge over to
the mainland lifted up into the air in a cloud of debris and smoke
that was instantly blown away. Two of the graceful spans collapsed
inward and down, sending tons of tarmac, concrete and iron railings
into the sea.

The Insurrectos on the road halted,
dismayed. Their last avenue of escape had just been cut off.

Duardo ignored them and instead bent and
pushed forward, his head down. The entrance to the smelter, with
its guard box and heavy iron doors, was within sight now, although
to Duardo it appeared as a large, light gray mass among a lot more
gray. His vision was shot, his eyes streaming. He kept pushing
forward, Adjuno guiding him.

Then Adjuno dug his fingers into
Duardo’s shoulder and he stepped up close to him. His gun arm
pushed around Duardo and he fired. Duardo saw the flash from the
muzzle, but didn’t hear the shot. He wiped his eyes and looked.

There were six or seven Insurrectos
standing in the entrance to the smelter and behind the guard box.
They were firing at them, but nothing seemed to come close.

Duardo was close enough that it was
possible the wind wouldn’t be a factor. He took out three of them
with quick shots. Everyone in the line behind him was firing, the
wind masking their shots, but the Insurrectos were dropping right
in front of the doorway.